The Men of Trafalgar Medal Roll

‘England expects that every man will do his duty’The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).The battle was the most decisive British naval victory of the war. Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve off the south-west coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost.The British victory spectacularly confirmed the naval supremacy that Britain had established during the previous century and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from the prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy, which involved engaging an enemy fleet in a single line of battle parallel to the enemy to facilitate signalling in battle and disengagement, and to maximise fields of fire and target areas. Nelson instead divided his smaller force into two columns directed perpendicularly against the larger enemy fleet, with decisive results.Nelson was mortally wounded during the battle, becoming one of Britain's greatest war heroes. The commander of the joint French and Spanish forces, Admiral Villeneuve, was captured along with his ship Bucentaure. Spanish Admiral Federico Gravina escaped with the remnant of the fleet and succumbed months later to wounds sustained during the battle.33 ships from the royal navy were outgunned and outmanned by the combined enemies fleet of 41 ships, 458 British and over 2218 enemy sailors lost their lives.The Trafalgar medal is one of the most sought after amongst medal collectors.

Records in this collection are likely to include the following:

Name

Number

Rank

Ship

Age

Town of Birth

any significant date

Please be aware that due to the way we collate, and cross reference our databases,
some records will contain more information than that listed above.

Original Source: TNA ADM171/1/8 2297 pages

This dataset is part of a larger collection:

The ‘Justmedals’ Victorian and 19th Century medal rollsLicensed exclusively to us - a significant work of medal rolls from the ‘justmedals collection’.These cover the Victorian and late 19th century of conflict including both Army and Navy campaign medals.It is important to note that it wasn’t until 1815 with the Waterloo medal that campaign medals were routinely given to anyone other than commissioned officers, therefore the medals shown in these various databases are some of the earliest recorded for ‘other ranks’ and are therefore very significant.